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Those craters came from somewhere.

NB: most of the visible craters on the Moon are billions of years old, and were created during the late heavy bombardment, 4.1 -- 3.8 billion years ago:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Heavy_Bombardment>

There are still constant meteoric impacts on the Moon, most as micrometeroids, though occasionally large enough to be visible from Earth. The one observed here in 2023 likely created a ~12m / 40ft diameter crater:

<https://www.space.com/meteorite-impacts-moon-february-2023-v...>

The larger craters would also likely have survived passage through the Earth's atmosphere, FWIW, so that wouldn't have saved you much either.

A more significant problem for any surface structures would likely be dust launched by human-based rocket landings and launches. Lunar dust does not billow from rocket exhaust, it is launched on a trajectory, probably sub-orbital, and will continue moving at its initial velocity until it impacts terrain or a structure.

This was first clearly realised and demonstrated during the Apollo 12 mission, which landed ~180m / 600ft from the Surveyor 3 unmanned lander. Parts of that spacecraft were returned to Earth, where it was discovered that they'd be sandblasted by lunar dust, largely as a result of the Lunar Module Intrepid's final descent:

<https://www.space.com/4956-lunar-landers-sandblasted-moon.ht...>

So it's probable that most man-made lunar structures would either have highly-resistant exteriors or be underground. And landing zones out of line-of-sight (or parabolic trajectory).



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